


Strong Black Coffee

by vanilla_villain37 (van1lla_v1lla1n)



Series: multichapter modern aus (reylo) [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Disorder, Bathing/Washing, Come Swallowing, Come play, Dissociation, Editorial Assistant!Rey, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Light breathplay, Masturbation, No Pregnancy, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Rey (Star Wars) is a Mess, Rey has a cat, Rey is practicing her communication skills but it's an ongoing process, Smut, Tattooed Ben Solo, Undernegotiated Kink, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Voice Kink, but one-sided, emotional literary blowjobs, many sorry, much please, professor!ben, to be clear the only one-sided thing is the enemies part of enemies-to-lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:33:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23762365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/van1lla_v1lla1n/pseuds/vanilla_villain37
Summary: Every Tuesday, Rey goes to the bar down the street to have a beer and read, enjoying the din and the energy there. But one week some man in a fucking flannel takes her table.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: multichapter modern aus (reylo) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859416
Comments: 168
Kudos: 356





	1. Goodnight

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is going to deal with an anxiety and panic disorder on Rey's part. It'll be present in glimpses early on and ramp up later, but I just want you to know that it'll be present throughout. I've tagged the big themes for now, but I'll update them as we go.
> 
> edit 6/17/20: I made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7p68TTn96RJDnI0XwwI4xw?si=ZmpHZdZcRneiZEdGsTd36Q) for this fic, if you'd like to listen!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to lotrtrash for the beta! 💕 Chapter title from the song ["Goodnight"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsLyD5k8CQ8) by The Heavy Eyes.

Rey walked into the bar a few minutes after she usually did on Tuesdays, _maybe_ ten minutes later—it had been a long day consoling persnickety authors at work, and she’d crashed comatose on the couch for longer than she intended to before changing and heading back out. But of course some dick had taken her usual table, the one she liked because it was in view of the door but against the wall, a small one that wouldn’t make it look like she was sitting there waiting for other people to show up, but slightly too small for most people to consider trying to sit there as well. Too small to look inviting.

She took a few seconds to glare at the man in her chair. At _her_ table. He was simply too big for it. He was looking over a stack of papers in front of him and had one leg stretched out almost into the walkway. _If he’d picked a bigger table, he could put his fucking legs_ under _the table._ She stomped a little when she walked past his table, but he didn’t look up. Very focused.

After ordering a beer, she paused a little past the bar, where the space opened up a bit. There were more tables here, and she’d have to choose one—she spotted one against the far wall that looked vacant enough, took the empty glasses from it up to the bar, and set her bag down on the other chair. From where she sat she could both see the door _and_ mean-mug the back of the man who’d taken her table, if she felt so inclined. She gave his flannel shirt one more glower as she leaned over the table to get her book out of her bag.

She tried to read but couldn’t focus in her irritation. She’d sat at that table every Tuesday since she moved here a few months ago. She still didn’t know many people here, but she had her coworkers, and sitting here in the din, overhearing other small groups’ conversations, gave her similar energy as being a part of one of those groups herself might. And there was always the _option_ to talk to someone else there if she really wanted to.

Really, though, could this town not allow her _one_ thing? All she wanted was to show up on Tuesdays, sit at her table, drink her beer, read her book. Just for things to go how she wanted for one hour a week. She got out her phone, typed out a text to Finn, and deleted it—he was a few time zones ahead now, probably already asleep.

Again, she picked up her book, but instead of getting into it, all she could think of were the irritated emails authors were probably penning this very minute to barrage her overnight, upset that their copyeditors wanted to instate serial commas, offended that the copywriter hadn’t used the book descriptions they’d provided in their marketing questionnaires for the cover copy.

Chuck Palpatine was probably going to call her seconds after eight o’clock tomorrow morning, asking her for the fifteenth time why he couldn’t see the third round of proofs for his latest book. The man was fucking senile, and Rey honestly didn’t understand how he’d come up with enough comprehensible material to put together another manuscript anyway.

Rey tossed her book on the table and drained the rest of her beer. She’d wanted to keep up her routine, but today was obviously not the day for it. She slumped back in her seat for a minute and sighed, eyes closed, then shoved her book in her bag and stalked up toward the door.

But just as she stepped next to her usual table, her beflanneled seat stealer stood up abruptly, picking up the top page from his stack of papers so he could keep reading it, and Rey had to sidestep quickly around the leg of his chair, around his elbow and shoulder that jutted out into the walkway, bumping into someone on a barstool to her left.

“Jesus Christ, haven’t any of you ever heard of a Dutch fucking Reach?” she said. She sighed, tugged a hand through her hair. She mumbled an apology to the guy she’d bumped, hoping—not looking to check—that he hadn’t been holding a drink. She turned back to the man at her table, gesturing at him and glaring an unspoken _what the fuck_ at his face, which was _somehow_ still focused on his reading. She stood there, waiting, still gesturing with her outstretched _what the fuck_ hand, until he finally looked up.

The man was fucking clueless. He looked into her eyes, had the gall to tilt his chin, confused, and say, “Hello?”

Rey looked behind him, where she’d had to sidestep so abruptly around him, looked at the man she’d bumped into—she hadn’t just imagined all that, right? Then glared back at Flannel Asshole, threw up her hands, and walked out. If he didn’t get it, she wasn’t wasting her time explaining. She’d spent enough of her day explaining shit to people.

On her walk home, once she was out in the humid air, she thought, _Maybe a bit of an overreaction._ But he _had_ taken the table she’d sat at every week for months. And then he’d just been so clueless—how could anyone focus on something _that_ deeply? Maybe she’d drank the beer too fast; she felt it a bit in her head now, tried to take in deep breaths. But the air was so warm. It was so much hotter here than it would’ve been back home this time of year. It was only _April_.

When she got back to her apartment, she went up the stairs and just sat on the concrete landing next to her door, staring out at the parking lot. She almost wished she still smoked so she’d have a reason just to sit out there for a minute, but if she did, she felt like her neighbors would take an even worse impression of her if they walked past right now than they already did, given her accent and her living alone and her otherwise _not-from-around-here_ airs.

Then she heard a muted meow in the window above her head and looked up to see a little gray face peering out at her. Rey smiled and stood up to unlock the door as Norra started pawing at the window.

She sat on the kitchen counter to eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich, her head resting back against the cabinet behind her, pretending not to see Norra sitting next to her on the counter so she wouldn’t have to shoo her down. She should’ve eaten before she went to the bar; she was too hungry, too tired to make herself a real meal now.

***

Chuck Palpatine waited until the leisurely hour of 8:15 a.m. to call her the next morning, asking about the next round of proofs of his latest _opus_.

“My apologies, Mr. Palpatine, but you know that it’s press policy not to send out more than the first round of proof. The only corrections we’re allowing now are for typesetter’s errors. . . . Yes, sir, Ms. Mothma is overseeing all the corrections now. . . . No, I’m afraid she’s not in yet today. . . . Yes, I am familiar, and I know that you’ve published—”

Just as Palpatine interrupted her to remind her just how many books he’d published with presses much larger than theirs, Miriam Mothma, the managing editor and Rey’s superior, walked in to the office.

She whispered, “Palpatine?” and held her hand out for the phone when Rey nodded. 

Rey got up and walked down the hall to the breakroom, hearing Mothma’s “Yes, _hello_ , Chuck, this is Miriam Mothma . . .” behind her. One of the production editors, Rose Tico, was there making her coffee, and they chatted briefly about the editorial meeting schedule for the week.

Rose was friendly, and although Mothma was technically Rey’s supervisor, she did work for Rose and the other two production editors as well. So as much as she liked Rose, it was difficult to feel like they could be friends. Who wanted to hear their assistant complaining about what happened at the bar last night?

When Rey heard Mothma set down her phone, she wandered back down the hall to thank her for taking over. Before getting back to work she sat for a minute to pout about her ruined Tuesday tradition. She hoped to god that man wouldn’t be there again next week, grumbled to herself about his focus, his obliviousness, his frankly _ridiculous_ choice of attire—hadn’t he been stifling in that flannel? She saw the gentle wave of his hair and the stretch of that shirt across his shoulder blades and cursed at herself.

***

The next Tuesday, Rey left work promptly at five o’clock, ate a quick dinner, and walked over to the bar early. Her grudge against Flannel Asshole had only grown, and there was no way she would let him ruin her tradition again. Her timeliness paid off; her table was free. She ordered her beer and sat down quickly.

She took out her book, feeling smug, successful. She’d brought _Barkskins_ with her this week. She’d felt a little uncertain about starting it because it was such a chunk of a book, but she’d wanted some fiction to lighten things up a bit after finishing _Know My Name_ last week, and she liked how the heavy hardcover would lay open on its own on the table. Her mind wandered a bit before she was able to engage fully in the prose, but finally she was able to settle in.

And just then a figure hovered into her peripheral vision and lingered. She felt her shoulders tense up, her jaw clench, tried to ignore that figure. When it didn’t move on she looked up, ready to rebuff an advance. She saw soft flannel, found the man’s eyes, glared briefly, and looked back down at her book. He cleared his throat softly; she ignored him.

He said, “May I sit here?”

She looked up at the tables in front of her, behind her, saw none empty, and moved her book an inch toward her.

She said, “Fine.

She didn’t look at him as he sat down but she watched him, her eyes stuck on one paragraph. She tried not to sigh; couldn’t she have said no, for once? He was pulling that stack of papers out of his bag now, lining them up on his side of the little table. She tried not to look at his hands, at the skin of his forearms where his sleeves were rolled up. She exhaled when he stood up to go to the bar, hating that she had looked up at him briefly when his back had turned, hating that she noticed his clean scent, hating that she felt it in her chest.

He didn’t say anything when he sat back down, just picked up his pen and began to mark the first page, grading, she guessed. His foot bumped hers under the table once, and he apologized quietly, but other than that he was silent. Rey took deep breaths through her nose, begged herself to look _normal_ , focused, even as she struggled to get back into her book. She wanted to forget he was there, and he was so quiet that eventually she almost did, though his broad shoulders in her peripheral vision and his massive hands resting on the table and holding that slender pen made it difficult.

At least she still had half her table. She felt exhausted by the time she finished her beer, keyed up and unsteady and ready to leave. She wanted to have a second one—she allowed herself two on Tuesdays, if she was really enjoying her book or wasn’t ready to go home yet—but she didn’t want to sit there any longer, trying not to look at the man so close in her space, trying not to think about whether she could still pick out his scent, trying not to think about whether she should say something to him, whether she needed to be somehow nicer. So she stowed her book, glanced briefly at the silent man at her table, and walked out.

Outside in the humidity she took in deep gulps of air, trying to slow her mind down. She walked past the front windows of the bar and leaned back against the warm brick wall, closed her eyes, breathed through her nose. Steadied, she walked home, focusing on the sidewalk, on the streetlights, on the feel of the air in her nose, her chest.

***

Rey’s week passed normally: she chatted briefly with coworkers, she met her deadlines, she made passable dinners and ate the leftovers for lunch the next day. She read _Barkskins_ with Norra on the couch. She thought she should text Finn and then got distracted by something else she thought she ought to do. She went for a walk near campus Saturday afternoon, just to get out, to be around the people, especially the students, who were out and socializing and have so much energy.

She tried not to worry about work when she’s not at work, but some evenings she found herself fixating on all the things that could go wrong while she’s not there, all the questions she might have to answer the next day, and tried to prepare solutions and answers she may never need for countless hypothetical situations. But it felt like practice, like a worthwhile use of time, even though it added to her stress.

A few times her mind strayed to her Tuesday outing—it’s the only _different_ thing she does each week, really, the main opportunity she has for unscripted interactions with strangers, so it makes sense that she would think about it. She didn’t want to think about Flannel Man—she didn’t think of him as Flannel Asshole anymore and she didn’t want to think about that either. But she did think about him.

Once when she was reading on the couch with Norra she noticed that her mind had drifted off entirely, that she’d just been sitting there thinking about him being in her space, how it wasn’t so horrible to share her table, how quiet he was. Wondering _why_ he had sat there. Maybe for the same reasons she liked to sit there. Nothing more than that, probably.

And once, maybe, she thought about him later at night, when she was lying in bed, wishing she could sleep. Her mind strayed to the image of his fingers on the table, holding that pen, turning a page, as she tried to concentrate on the feeling of her own fingers inside her. She wanted to come, wanted that physical exhaustion to distract her and allow her to sleep, so she let those images play over and over until she slipped into imagining that her fingers are _his._ And afterward, catching her breath, she stared at the ceiling and let shame wash over her, for letting herself fixate on, _objectify_ a stranger that way. And she tried to forget about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> QueenOfCarrotFlowers commissioned this GORGEOUS ART (!!!) from [lp_artworks](https://twitter.com/LP_artworks)!! I'll never recover from this beauty istg:
> 
> I don't have a set update schedule for this, but I've got it all planned out, so updates should be fairly regular. Also, this is my first multichapter fic, so chapter count will be roughly five but might go up or down one--we'll see!
> 
> Also, the [Dutch Reach](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/the-dutch-reach-how-opening-car-door-like-the-dutch-could-save-lives-cycling/)


	2. In the Back of Your Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey's been a little distracted at work. She thinks maybe this Tuesday she should work late and skip her weekly reading session at the bar. It's difficult to break a tradition, though, and even more difficult to avoid thinking about quiet man who'd so inexplicably stolen her table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the song "Sultans of Ping" by Delta Sleep.

Rey tried to get through Monday and Tuesday without thinking overly much of Flannel Man. The visceral shame she felt connected with him now helped with that, though it also left her sitting at her desk once or twice with an inexplicable nausea she chose not to examine.

She’d spoken _one word_ to him that wasn’t outright rude. One. And yet she found herself wondering what he thought of that one word. She had so few conversations she found important during the week that this one—if it could even be called a conversation—began to take outsized importance in her brain, as much as she tried to downplay it. As Monday’s tasks bled into Tuesday’s, as her Tuesday tradition loomed, that image of his back turning away from her table flashed unbidden into her consciousness more and more often. Each time, she clenched her jaw, told herself to _fuck off_ , pushed the thought away, tried to refocus on her task. If only her brain would _stop_.

She tried telling herself that it didn’t matter, that just because she’d seen him at the same place and same time two weeks in a row didn’t mean she’d see him again this week. It didn’t mean he’d sit with her again, even if he did show up again. And even if he did sit at her table, it’d probably only be if there were no other free tables, or because her table was the best one, as she knew.

She struggled to focus at work Tuesday, found herself taking twice as long to put together meeting materials as it normally did. Instead of handing around the next day’s meeting packets that morning, she did so closer to four o’clock, which meant that the production editors would only have the next hour and a few in the morning to prepare their projects. She apologized to each one, and of course they all waved her off and told her it was fine—they were all nice people. How else were they going to respond?

So when she got back to her desk at the front of the office after making her round, she still felt guilty, and on top of that she felt _behind_. She’d spent so long putting together the packets and staring off into space and cursing at herself that she’d left several authors’ emails unanswered. And she felt that the longer she waited to respond to them, the more frustrated the senders would get.

Perhaps it would be better to work a little later today and go to the bar for her reading night tomorrow. She vexed about this and haltingly typed emails and stared off at the wall until she realized it was 5:45, and she’d been alone in the office for nearly half an hour. She’d barely even registered Mothma saying goodbye to her.

In a rush she sent off the email she was working on and packed up her bag, realizing when she got to her car that she’d forgotten to wash out the half-full coffee mug at her desk. She went home and changed out of her confining dress clothes into jeans, choosing a top she liked and trying not to think too hard about that choice—how often she’d worn it, whether she’d worn it last week or not. She liked it, and that was enough; she’d been thinking and thinking all day and now she was ready to _do_.

She stuffed a granola bar in her mouth, chased it with a spoonful of peanut butter, and checked that she’d left her book and a water bottle in her bag. And she took off down the concrete steps toward the bar. It wasn’t a long walk and it was nearing dusk, but heat radiated from the pavement, and she began to think wearing jeans hadn’t been the best idea.

When she arrived she felt red-faced and a little out of breath. The beer she ordered was light and effervescent and cool, and she took a long drink as she turned away from the bar toward her table. Flannel Man was already there, sitting on his side of the table, but he was just wearing a dark, worn-in t-shirt today. No flannel. She sat down.

He looked up at her briefly, said, “Hello.” Not like the last time he’d said it, when he’d almost knocked her over (accidentally), when he sounded like he was answering an unexpected phone call—this time he sounded almost pleasant, and Rey was certain she saw a little smirk in the corner of his mouth as he looked back down at this week’s stack of papers.

She said, “Do you mind?” and he looked back up.

“No.” And now he smirked fully. “It is your table, after all. Do _you_ mind?” His voice washed over her in a deep wave.

“ _My_ table? Um, yes. I mean—no. I don’t mind.” _Jesus fuck._ At least her face was already red from the heat outside. But he wasn’t looking at her anymore anyway. So she was relieved of trying to think of something else to say—though not relieved of reliving the stupidity of what she’d _just_ said. She took another long drink of her beer, already almost half gone, and took out _Barkskins_.

He’d preserved the table division she’d set last time, so she had just enough room to lay out her book and set her glass next to it on one side and her elbow on the other. She rested her head on her hand so that more of the book than the man would be in her field of vision. And as before he was so quiet that she could almost forget he was there. Hunched over that way she was able to get through a few pages, though her heart raced every time he shifted on his side of the table, and she worked not to clench her hands, both visible to him.

She shifted back in her chair when he stood up, though she didn’t look up from the page. He took a few steps, turned around, came back, and she froze, her eyes on her book but her focus on his shoes, her toes curled hard in her own.

He said, “Can I get you another?” and she looked up to see him nodding, eyebrows raised, at her glass, now empty beside her. She wanted to say _Sure_ , wanted not to reject his offer that was probably only out of courtesy, wanted to trust him, but she couldn’t. Her eyes caught on a tattoo inside his elbow and she wanted even more badly to stare and knew even more deeply that she should not.

She looked back up at his face—also a mistake, he was _waiting_ , looking at her expectantly—and said, “That’s alright, thank you—no.” But as he said, “Okay,” and turned back toward the bar, she realized she’d just be sitting there with an empty glass if she stayed any longer, and what reason did she have to stay at that point? Still, she felt a little too keyed-up to have another beer; maybe better to stick with one today.

When the man came back from the bar, though, he set a glass of ice water on her side of the table as he sat down.

He said, “Water?”

She said, “Thanks.” She looked at the condensation on the glass, looked at his elbow, wrapped in words in black ink, looked at his face.

She said again, “Thank you. I’m Rey.”

And he smiled, nodded, said, “Ben.” Took a sip of his beer, looked back down at his stack of papers.

Occasionally Rey noticed him turning a page or shifting in his seat, or heard him mutter some soft exclamation to himself as he read. But other than that he said nothing else, and neither did Rey—curious but reticent to break a companionable silence. She looked at him briefly over her glass when she paused to take a drink of the water he’d brought her, noting the intensity of his concentration, his furrowed brow, his collarbone above the stretched collar of his t-shirt.

Some time later, when he stood up to leave, he still said nothing, just drained his glass, packed up his papers, and walked out. Rey looked up when she heard the door close, feeling absurdly a bit bereft and a little confused. Then she noticed he’d left something on the table, a small bright paperback. _Annihilation_. It was too late to run out after him, so when she decided a few minutes later that she probably ought to head home herself, she tucked his little book into her bag with her own. She’d bring it back next week.

***

Rey tossed the book onto her coffee table before she left for work the next morning, then spent the day worrying that Norra was going to chew up the corners or piss on it. She left the office a little early, since she’d stayed late the day before, and rushed home to check on the book. It felt like something she’d stolen, some illicit possession or relic she’d carelessly left out in the path of her destructive asshole of an animal.

The book was fine. Rey gave Norra extra kisses (which she didn’t want) and half a can of wet food (which she did) to make up for doubting her. When she went into her bedroom for the night, she took the book with her and set it on the nightstand, where at least she’d hear if Norra tried to fuck with it in the night.

The book wasn’t new, but it was well taken care of. It hadn’t been tossed around in a backpack, still had both covers, didn’t have any missing or even dog-eared pages. No coffee stains, no weird fingerprints. Clean enough to sell secondhand. If Flannel Man—Ben—didn’t show up next week, maybe she’d take it up to the used bookstore with the others she’d finished recently.

She turned out her lamp and reminded herself that it was perfectly possible he might not show up again.

***

She carried the book to work Thursday and Friday, set in back on her nightstand each night, hoping its trips in her bag weren’t wearing it down too much. The corners of the cover had softened a bit already.

She forgot about the book Saturday, left it on her nightstand all day while she, on the couch, did a lot of nothing, and a good bit of thinking about what she _should_ have been doing. It stormed all day, so she couldn’t go out for her afternoon walk. She tried to read _Barkskins_. Couldn’t focus. Thought she might watch a TV show. Spent an hour trying to choose something and gave up.

After an unnamable 4:00 p.m. meal of trash tacos from the few limp vegetables she could scrounge up from the fridge and a can of refried beans, she went looking for Norra in her bedroom, found her at the foot of the bed, and spotted the book on her nightstand. Boredom, and something about the fact that the sky hadn’t brightened above a low duskiness all day, had lowered her inhibitions about looking at the book too closely. She picked it up in one hand and Norra in the other and trudged them both back to the couch.

She read the back: “Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. . . . Four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. . . . It’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.” The review blurbs: “palpable, wondrous disquiet.” “Haunted and haunting.” “Unbearable tension and a claustrophobic dread that linger long afterward.”

Not what she would normally choose to read, especially on a Saturday evening alone. She set the book down on the coffee table, put her feet up next to it, stared at it. Chewed her lip. Sighed. She got up and poured herself a glass of wine. Something else she wouldn’t normally do, especially not this early in the evening, but she wanted something dark and rich to go with this book, wanted the lightness of the wine in her head. Even holding the book still felt illicit; she felt that reading it would be like taking ownership of it entirely.

She sat back down to read it, Norra’s chin on her hip, and when she next looked up, she had half finished, her glass empty, the windows full dark. The storm had tapered off to a gentle rain, and she thought about opening the window, but the dark was too much. With another full glass and a blanket she settled back in.

She was frozen there on the couch, haunted by the prose and the natural monstrosities it described, the wine and dark allowing unexamined emotions to bubble up in her mind and mix with the inexplicable horrors of Area X. When she finished the book she was restless and riveted. She lay there on the couch and let herself be wholly overtaken by the book, let herself feel fully the emotions it had brought up in her.

And she dreamed. She dreamed that she walked through a dark, wet forest, her path lit by fluorescent plants. She felt a dark figure behind her, and she felt the anxiety of being followed, but she wasn’t frightened. Once she stopped, leaned against a tree, and the man came up to her and pressed his body against hers, his face in her neck. She breathed him in.

Then she broke away, and when she turned back he was gone. She was underground, on a dank spiraling stairwell, and as she descended, the wall was covered in unreadable words spelled out in moss. A low voice spoke unknowable words, and she knew it was narrating her life, and that the moss was transcribing its words. She saw a light bobbing up the stairwell below her, and now she did feel frightened.

But she tripped as she turned to run back up, and as she scrambled to stand, the light caught up to her and blinded her, freezing her on the steps. The figure set the light down beside her, and she saw the words from the wall echoed on its bare arm, which reached out to her and lifted her up. The man held her face and stared down at her until she squirmed to look away; he wouldn’t let her. Her jaw held firmly, gently, in one hand, he traced a finger down the side of her neck, down her sternum. She breathed deeply and felt that she no longer wanted to struggle.

When Rey woke up the sun was just beginning to rise, sliding across her face around the blinds. She was sweaty; it’d been cool yesterday and she hadn’t turned on the air conditioner, so the apartment was muggy now. There was an ache in her neck from sleeping on the couch and an ache between her legs from something else. She rolled to her stomach and stretched her back, her neck, pressing her hips into the cushion.

She still felt unnerved from her dream, from the book. She reached down to brush her fingers over her vulva and her back arched immediately. Sleepily she rubbed herself off through her sleep shorts. It was utilitarian, efficient, and afterward she still felt an unfulfilled ache deep inside her, but at least she’d dulled the sharp edge of need.

She hid the book away in her bag, and the rest of her day off passed in a cloud of unsettled delirium.

***

By the time Tuesday came, Rey had cleared out the most violent thunderclouds from her brain, but she was still left with a low, lasting fog. She felt slow, a little uncertain about how to interact with other humans. She struggled to find something to say when she passed her coworkers in the hallway at the office, even Rose, who was friendly and warm as always, though Rey had given her more small smiles and nods than words this week. Finn had called during her lunch hour Monday, and she hadn’t yet called him back, though she thought about it and berated herself for not doing it every time she picked up her phone.

She felt almost as if she were living in an aquarium, a bubble of water that muffled everyone and everything else in the world and magnified her own thoughts in place of reality. She made no decisions; she just existed, did what she always did. So when it came time to leave the office Tuesday, she did as she always did: she drove home, changed clothes, ate something, and walked to the bar.

She sat at her table and looked at her full glass; she wasn’t sure what she’d ordered. She opened her bag to find two books in it, and for once she was thankful to past Rey, for thinking to put Ben’s book there. She put both of them on the table and was sitting there staring at them when Ben sat down.

He said, “Hi, Rey.” Pleasant.

She looked up at him, said, “Hi.” She tried to smile; he was looking at the book.

She said, “You forgot this. Last time.” And pushed it across the table to his side, careful to avoid the little puddles of condensation.

He said, “Ah. Thank you. Did you read it?”

She said, “I did. I’m sorry—I hope I didn’t wear it out too much.”

He said, “I hoped you would.” She wasn’t sure how to respond to that; she wasn’t sure what he meant, which part he was answering.

“Did you like it?” He looked at her earnestly, openly. In another thin t-shirt today. Too hot, too humid for flannel.

She said, “I did. It’s not what I normally would read, but it looked good. And it was.” She wished she had something more poignant to say about it; she’d read it all at once, after all, and wasn’t it still affecting her three days later? She’d dreamed about it. But perhaps now wasn’t the time to think about that.

“A little different than Proulx?”

“Yes. A little faster, for sure. I read it all at once.” She took a sip of her beer, noticed the coolness in her throat.

He smiled at that. “Do you want the other ones, the sequels?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest.”

“I think the first one is the best, but the other two go deeper into the chaos. If you liked that part of it. I could bring them to you next week. If you want.”

She said, “Sure. Alright,” and she felt her smile was more genuine this time. She moved to open her book and realized he hadn’t gotten out his stack of papers.

“No papers today?”

“Ah, no. Last week was the last set. End of the semester.”

She thought, _Then what are you doing here?_ She said, “Oh.” _Poignant._ She took a long drink of her beer, a long breath, a long look across the room. And said, “You’re a professor, then?”

He was an English instructor at the community college nearby, he told her. Not quite a professor. She was able to keep up with him enough to ask him an easy question here and there, keep him talking. He paused often, asked a few questions about her too—but these she responded to with short answers that she hoped were still friendly enough. He kept talking, kept smiling slightly, and most of all he didn’t leave, so she guessed they were friendly enough.

She wanted to give him better answers, really, when he asked her about herself, but she couldn’t sort out today what was okay to say and what wasn’t, and she didn’t want to drive him off with anything that might seem overly piteous. She told him she worked at the local press, that she’d just moved here a few months ago. That was more than most people knew; it was enough.

They talked slowly, quietly. Even when he asked her questions she didn’t feel pressed, pressured; she felt he didn’t mind waiting for her answers, didn’t mind quiet spaces before her questions.

After their glasses were empty he said, “Do you smoke?”

And she said, “Sure,” gathered her things, followed him outside.

He offered her a cigarette, and she took it, let him lean a little into her space and light it for her. She knew intellectually that this was flirting, yet she couldn’t believe that this man would flirt with her. Standing against the brick wall with him, she looked down at her shoes, snuck glances at his—his longish trouser shorts, his incongruous boots.

He said nothing, standing there, and she didn’t mind. She was so glad for companionable quiet; what a relief to share space with someone who seemed to expect so little from her and to be so grateful for what she was able to give. She leaned back against the warm brick, looked up at the overcast dark sky, and breathed him in with each drag of the borrowed cigarette.

When she was done she crouched to put it out on the sidewalk, tossed it in a bin. She turned back to him and swallowed. Speaking now felt out of place, awkward, but she was ready to leave and didn’t want to seem rude. He had straightened up a little, his feet under him, looked about ready to leave too.

She stepped toward him, touched his forearm with two fingertips, and said, “Good night,” hoped she’d said it loud enough for him to hear. And started home.


	3. Early Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey, feeling good about her week, goes back to the bar on Friday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: panic attack, drunkenness, consent issues (there’s no sex in this chapter but I do feel this comes into play; please see endnotes for more on that).
> 
> Chapter title from the song ["Early Rain"](https://youtu.be/YVk7pr2Mn50) by Ezra Furman.
> 
> Thanks to QueenOfCarrotFlowers for the beta! 💕

On a high from her conversation with Ben, Rey snapped out of that fishbowl fog when she woke up Wednesday morning. She found that her words came freely again, that she could focus on her work.

On Thursday Rose spoke to her in the breakroom at lunch, and Rey explained her Tuesday tradition. They talked about their weekend plans; Rose was going to visit family a few hours’ drive away, and Rey hoped it didn’t rain again so she could go on her Saturday walk through campus. She sought out Mothma later in the day and apologized again for running so late, being so scatterbrained, the week before, and Mothma reminded her that she could use her paid time off for mental health days when she needed to, that she didn’t have to say that’s what it was for.

That night she called Finn back, finally, and they talked for an hour or so about how she was settling in at work, about how Finn and their old friend group were doing back home, about the last time they heard from their foster parents. Neither of them had heard from them since Rey moved, so likely they don’t even know that she no longer even lived in the same state.

On Friday she woke up early, made herself breakfast, even made a lunch to take to work so she wouldn’t have to eat the same leftovers for the fourth time that week. She spoke with all her coworkers throughout the day, even stopping by Rose’s office that afternoon to chat. She felt exuberant, connected.

When she got home that evening she felt like going out. She ate a quick dinner and changed into something nice—a cute blouse tucked into high-waisted shorts, comfortable and cool but _nice_ , she thought—and touched up her makeup. Tucking her book into her bag, she walked down to the bar. It was still sunny out, but the heat mirrored the exuberant energy she felt radiating from herself, and she didn’t mind.

After the walk the air conditioning in the bar felt _good_ ; the cold beer tasted _good_ , cooling her throat, her chest. It was still early for most people going out on a Friday, and her table was free. She sat down and settled into her book, feeling free in her solitude. The same solitude on Tuesdays had so often felt oppressive, and she felt almost ready to admit that to herself now, from a place of comfort.

Some time later she looked up to see Ben sitting down across from her, setting down two glasses and sliding one over to her. Accepting it felt stupid, risky, since she hadn’t watched him get it, but she took it anyway, returning his smile and his hello.

They sat quietly for a minute, and she said, “I didn’t know if you’d be here today.”

He said, “I hoped you would.” He dressed much the same as the other times she’d seen him, comfortable, just a t-shirt, but he looked fresher, brighter somehow, clean shaven, hair soft.

She said, “Can I ask about your tattoo?” She could see the bare skin above it now, where his sleeve pulled up over his bicep. He stretched his arm out toward her across the table, and she held his forearm, turning it to read the words wrapped around his elbow. She saw “you do not have to be good” inside his upper arm; “the soft animal of your body” on the back, just above the joint; “over and over announcing your place” on the muscle of his forearm.

“‘Wild Geese’?” she asked. He nodded, smiled a little, happy she knew it. She realized that she still felt his warm skin against her fingers, that she was still holding his arm, and she let go. She felt a little flustered, not sure what else to say. She took a long drink from her beer and felt it in her head fast and light, reminded herself it was already her second. She felt okay, though; she felt _good_ even, comfortable with Ben, and didn’t want him to think she didn’t.

He asked how the rest of her week had been, and she answered honestly, openly, telling him about the coworkers she liked, her kind manager, how she’d spoken with her foster brother, which she did less often than she liked now that she’d moved. He listened intently, asked her questions, and even so she worried a few times, just briefly, that she was talking too much, that he didn’t _really_ want this much detail. But she blinked the thought away, smiled at him, sipped her beer, the glass dripping condensation onto the table, onto her bare thigh.

When they’d both finished their drinks she followed him outside, where it was falling dusk, and accepted another of his cigarettes. She met his eye when he leaned in to light it for her, and she felt his gaze on her mouth behind the flame. He stood frozen in front of her as she let that first breath of smoke float out of her mouth.

He lit his own, brow furrowed, and said on an exhale, “Do you have plans later?” She shook her head.

“I told a friend I’d go to his party,” he said, “but I don’t really want to. Would you go with me? It’s not far from here. We could walk.”

Rey smiled. “Sure. I can’t think of the last party I went to. Before I moved here, I’m sure,” she said. And then, “When does it start?” It was nearing eight o’clock now.

“I’m sure it’s started already. Might’ve started last night even.” Ben laughed a little, but his jaw was tight. He said, “Shall we?” and started off down the sidewalk. He held out his elbow a little, and Rey took his arm, not really sure if he meant her to or not but going for it anyway, taking the excuse to touch him. His skin was hot, and she let her fingers drift a bit over the softness inside his elbow.

“So what kind of party is this?” she asked. “And why don’t you want to go?”

“Just a house party. I don’t think it’ll be too big. Poe always invites me but I don’t usually go. Not really one for parties.”

“Do you work with him?”

“We’ve known each other since we were kids. He’s a professor in my mother’s department at the university now. To be completely honest I mostly want to go so she’ll stop badgering me about being antisocial.”

“So your friend will tell her you were there?”

“Definitely. Sometimes I think she talks to him more than she talks to me.”

Rey made a soft sound; she wasn’t sure what to ask, wasn’t sure if this was something he really wanted to talk about. He didn’t say more, and they walked quietly for a few minutes, turning onto a smaller neighborhood street.

Ben reached across his chest and put his hand over hers on his elbow, said softly, “Thank you for coming with me.” Rey looked up at him, but he kept his face forward, looking at the houses. After a few steps he brought her hand up, threading it under his arm, and pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist. “Almost there,” he said.

***

Rey loves _every_ song that plays at this party; whoever made the playlist has excellent taste. She wishes she knew who anyone was so she could find the playlist-maker and tell them how great they are. Instead she settles for telling the person dancing next to her in this little living room.

The music and the energy from the people around her rise up as a chaotic force in her body. She is a person in a place enjoying things with other people. She doesn’t know who any of them are but it doesn’t matter because they are good, they are people, and with them she too can be good, a person.

She loves it here. She lost Ben some time ago—could’ve been five minutes or an hour—but she’ll find him again eventually. The house isn’t that big. And he _is_ big. She’ll be able to see him, should be able to find him easily. He probably isn’t looking for her in any case. He’d been talking to lots of people he knew, when she still knew where he was, so surely he wouldn’t feel left alone.

Rey didn’t feel left alone. Even though she was. Since she didn’t know anyone. But it was an almost pleasant anonymity. No one’s opinions mattered. Except hers, and she was doing what she liked. And except Ben’s, but he wasn’t there to see her in any case and she hoped he might like who she was like this. This was _her_ , after all, just her inside, or parts of it, shown outside. Parts of her that the other, louder, crueler, more conservative parts usually repressed.

The song faded and the next one seemed slow to start. She smiled at the person who’d been dancing next to her, and they did a little head nod, a little smile, and turned away. It was still quiet. She looked toward someone she’d noticed dancing on the other side of her; their back was turned. She looked around the room and no one was looking at her at all. Quiet, but everyone else talking. No music, just voices.

She squeezed through people to get out of the room, brushed past a few people in the hall, found another group in the kitchen. So many voices. She pressed herself against the counter to get behind them, to get to the cooler. With another drink in her hand at least she’d have something to do other than stand around with nothing to do, nothing to look at, no one to talk to. The ice in the cooler was melting and the near-freezing water burned her hand.

Someone stepped back, bumped into her just as she opened the beer. She managed barely not to spill, pressing her mouth to the top to inhale the rising foam. As she walked out of the kitchen she looked back to make sure Ben wasn’t there. He wasn’t. And he wasn’t in the next room either. But there was an open spot against the wall in this room, and she took it. She took a more measured sip of her beer, more of it gone already than she’d expected.

She looked past the bodies in this room, into the next, and spotted Ben, Ben’s shoulders in his dark t-shirt, Ben’s hair, the back of Ben’s head, above nearly everyone else’s in the room. He shifted, and Rey saw a shorter woman standing in front of him, her head tilted back hard to look up into his face. She smiled. Rey heard nothing but Ben’s laugh.

Rey looked away, exhaled hard. She wanted to sit down. She couldn’t sit here with all these people around; she couldn’t stand here with all these people around. She felt an inhale rasp through her chest. So many voices. They were all talking, talking without her, talking about her.

_That quiet girl alone against the wall_

_Has she even talked to anyone_

_Introverts always stand at the edge of the room_

_Look at her there by herself_

_Look at her ridiculous drunk face_

_What are those clothes_

_Who brought her here_

_How did she get here_

_Who knows her_

_No one?_

_Oh is she going to cry_

_So sad so sad_

Rey felt herself inhale, felt her breath in her chest, not enough, felt herself exhale. She couldn’t stand here anymore; this room was unbearable. These people were unbearable. She’d thought this spot against the wall was a respite when really it was a stage. A trap.

She couldn’t go back into the room she’d come from. People would see her, the same people who’d been there before, and they would know. _Know what?_ She couldn’t go into the next room. Ben was there. Ben would see her and know that she had seen him. _Seen him doing what?_ The woman he was with would see her and laugh at her. _Laugh at her for what?_

She drained the beer in her hand, hoping it would quiet her mind, erase this part of herself, let the fun part of her back out. Where was that part now, when she needed it? She set the empty can down on the table next to her, felt guilty for not throwing it away, worried that the person who found it later wouldn’t recycle it, but she didn’t know where else to take it.

She needed to get out of this room. The people were so loud in her ears. There was not enough air for this many people. She didn’t know the last time she blinked. She didn’t know the last time she breathed, and she inhaled deeply, gasping in lungfuls now, hearing herself and knowing the people in this room could hear her too. She had to get out.

She went back through all the rooms she had come through to get here, brushing past people, her eyes trained on their shoes to avoid bumping into them. She was certain that her eyes looked exactly as terrified as she felt, could feel the tears behind them, did not want to explain them, did not want to say she was okay, she was fine, fine, fine.

Finally she found an empty room, a bedroom, shut the door, wedged herself in the space between the bed and the wall, her knees to her chest, her hands wrapped tight around her ankles. Silence. Except her breathing, her gasping breaths wheezing into her chest and rattling back out. She focused on that sound, knowing that to anyone else’s ears it would be disturbing, shocking maybe, like the sound of a psychiatric ward in a horror film. But to her it was steadiness. A focal point.

She wanted to _scream_. She wanted to match her voice to all the ones outside, all the ones crushing in on her, on this room, her space. She felt that if she could scream all the chaos inside her would go out with it, would leave her empty and quiet. Would leave the good parts of her in and let the nasty parts out.

She sat there for hours, days. She wanted to enjoy these people, wanted to be the kind of person who could do that, who could let herself enjoy things without overthinking them. She wanted to be secure, secure in herself. She knew this fear of being left was what made her so unlikeable, was what left her alone so often. She tried so hard to be okay in that, to be okay alone.

She was stronger alone, didn’t have to manage the constant fear of being left behind, as her parents—the real ones, the first ones—had left her. She should have been over that by now; it had been years ago. How could two people she’d barely known leave such an indelible mark on her whole life? She worked so hard not to think about them but maybe she would never be free of them.

She relived their abandonment over and over and over, every time she got upset about something, every time she let herself feel happy, let herself get lost in the chaotic energy of bodies and alcohol that everyone else was able to enjoy.

Huddled there against the wall she heard a door shut, felt shameful relief—someone had found her, and if it wasn’t Ben maybe they could find Ben. She really didn’t want him to see her this way, really wanted no one to see her this way, him especially, but she also _wanted_ him there, wanted his warmth, his soft silence, his steadiness.

Someone walked around the bed, crouched next to her, took her face in their warm hands, and she knew it was Ben. She still struggled to breathe, took in deep slow gulps, diseased whoops in her throat.

He said, “Rey? What happened?” She heard her own high breath, and he sat down roughly next to her, and pulled her torso over across his lap, twisted her around so he could hold her against his chest, see her face.

She said, “I can’t.”

She said, “I saw you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you brought me, I’m sorry I made you, I’m sorry I saw, I’m sorry you have to deal with this, I’m sorry you have to see this. You don’t have to. You can leave. Please leave. Please leave me here.”

He was touching her hair, whispering softly to her, and she wanted to know what he was saying but she couldn’t stop talking now that she had started. But all she could say now was “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over and over.

She said, “I’m nothing. No one. I am not a person. Real people don’t have to think this hard about it.”

He said, “I don’t think anybody is anything, Rey. We’re all nothing. I think I’m nothing. Maybe you are too.” He held her face in his hands again, looked straight into her eyes, holding her flighty attention. “But not to me. You’re not nothing to me, Rey.”

Her face was hot, her eyes were hot, her hands twisted so tight in his shirt she knew she was stretching it out in spots but she didn’t know if that was worse or not worse than the spots where her tears soaked through it.

She said, “I can’t be here anymore.” She stood abruptly, untangling herself from Ben, went to the window, wasn't sure how to open it. She started toward the door, but Ben was behind her, his arms holding her still against his chest. She wrestled out of them. She needed to get away from him, needed him not to see this, needed him not to deal with this, knew he would be doing it only out of guilt, knew he would leave her as soon as he could, as soon as he'd done his duty.

She wrenched the door open, stalked through the house, feeling she looked insane but needing _out_. She needed not to be here when it got worse. She found a door to outside and hurried out onto a wooden deck. She tripped down the steps into the grass, felt sharp sticks pressing into her hands. She heard Ben behind her, scrambled up, eyes wild for a way out to the front yard, the street.

She spotted a gate but felt arms around her again, and her feet lifted off the ground. Her arms were pinned to her chest; her legs flailed. Then she was being set down, gentle pressure on her shoulders forcing her to kneel, and she was pulled back by her hips to lean against a warm chest, long legs bent up outside hers, big shoes pressing against the outside of her bare feet. She smelled Ben. His arms wrapped around her waist, his hands on her hands, his fingers tangled in hers.

Ben breathed next to her ear, chanting her name slowly, softly. He held her firmly but gently, not letting go of her hands but giving her ribs room to expand. He kissed the side of her face. She brought up his hands to cover her face, held his wrists. She put her face in his elbow, the inked words there blurring, and breathed in the warm scent of him.

She whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," against his skin.

And she fell asleep there, her face in his arm, his chest warm on her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, there's no sex in this chapter but I do feel that consent/physical power imbalance issues come into play: Rey is drunk and having a panic attack and Ben is a bit physically forceful with her as he tries to calm her down. There is a scene in which Rey is running away from him, and he’s chasing her, and when he catches her he holds her forcefully even though she struggles.
> 
> All the CW-relevant things occur once Rey and Ben are at the party, after the section break, marked with ***, and continue through the end of the chapter.
> 
> ["Wild Geese"](https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/24/mary-oliver-reads-wild-geese/) by Mary Oliver (text & recording of Mary Oliver reading the poem)


	4. Then You Wake Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey wakes up Saturday morning at a house that is definitely not hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see updated tags! 😌
> 
> Chapter title from ["Headsgiving"](https://youtu.be/8BAKVbmL8zk) by Porches.

When Rey woke up, groggy, confused, she was in a bed that definitely wasn’t hers. The blinds were fully open and the sunlight glared bright into her face. She felt a visceral shame, immediately wanted to hide under the sheet; she couldn’t think of why and wasn’t sure she really wanted to know. Her throat was raw when she swallowed. The waist of these shorts was too tight to sleep in, and her stomach felt constricted.

She rolled over. The pillowcase was dark, so even if she’d gotten mascara on it, it wouldn’t matter too much. The sheets on the bed were dark flannel, soft but much too warm for summer. She’d kicked the quilt off during the night—it lay in a tangle at the foot of the bed—but she was sweating even under just the sheet.

Ben’s bed. This was Ben’s house. She must’ve come back with him after—he must’ve _brought_ her here after—after the party. After she freaked out, fucking freaked the _absolute fuck_ out, at the party. She saw herself guzzling a beer, hiding behind a bed, running through a crowded house, falling down steps, kicking Ben’s legs as he picked her up. Thrashing like a fucking child.

She remembered her bare feet in the grass. Ben’s legs caging hers. Ben’s hands on her face. But those images were comforts she didn’t deserve, and she lay there replaying and replaying the shitty ones, doing her penance.

Maybe Ben didn’t want to see her as badly as she didn’t want to see him right now and had left her alone in the house or apartment or whatever this was. She knew she had to get up, get out of his place, and she dreaded that walk through the door to this room. She sat up, saw a pillow and blankets on the floor next to the bed, laid out like a pallet. Her bag and shoes set next to the bed. A toothbrush in its package on the nightstand, a stack of dark folded clothes, a torn sheet of paper.

> _Rey, I brought you here last night after the party. Here’s a change of clothes if you want them. Probably too big but the smallest I had. The bathroom is the door to your right. I’ll have coffee made when you’re ready for it. But sleep as long as you want. —Ben_

She took the toothbrush, left the clothes. In the bathroom she brushed her teeth; the handsoap she used to wash off her smudged makeup stung her eyes. She pressed cold water underneath them but they were still so puffy. Her feet were dirty—she was mortified she’d put them in someone else’s bed—and she rinsed them in the bathtub. She probably still smelled like beer and sweat and panic, but nothing to be done for that.

She sat back down on the bed, read the note again, folded it and tucked it into her book in her bag. She could smell coffee now, and she knew Ben would be out there. She felt tears sting her eyes and cursed herself; her face was bad enough already. She shoved her shoes in her bag, straightened the bed, inhaled deep.

Outside the room was a hallway, and she followed the scent of coffee down it to the kitchen. It was bright there, a big window lighting the room. Ben sat at the counter on a barstool, in sweatpants, bare feet, and no shirt. _No shirt_. He was staring down at his phone, didn’t seem to have heard her yet, and she paused there in the hallway to look at him, feeling her shame mix with longing and a bittersweet appreciation for how beautiful was.

He looked up at her when she walked into the kitchen and she realized she had no idea what to say. The sunlight highlighted the stray hairs floating up around his head, brightened the skin across his shoulders. He stood up, saying her name, his voice rough with sleep, but sat back down quickly when she startled.

She said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep so late.” She had no idea what time it was.

He said, “Do you want some coffee?” and circled around to the other side of the counter, opening a cabinet to get down a mug. “How do you take it?”

She just stood there, her bag hanging from her hand, staring at him. He asked if she wanted anything in her coffee and she shook her head. He set the mug down on the counter, in front of the stool he’d been sitting in, but stayed standing on the other side. There was nothing to do but sit down.

She hunched over the mug and inhaled the steam, closed her eyes. She looked up at him to say _I should go_ , but he met her eyes and said, “Rey, please talk to me.”

She said, “I didn’t think that would happen again. I’m sorry.”

He said, “You don’t need to apologize. I’ve been in therapy for years. I know how shitty brains can be.” He smiled a little. “But this has happened before?”

“Not since I moved here. I’ve been having panic attacks since I was a teenager. I know it’s terrible. My foster parents hated it. And I hate when I force them onto other people. You can say I don’t need to apologize but I’m still sorry.”

“Do you know where it came from this time? I mean—you don’t have to tell me. But if you want to.” He refilled his own coffee cup.

“I never know really. It’s like I let myself feel too happy and then my brain just decides to remind me I can’t, put me back in my place.”

“That sucks.”

She nodded. “It does. But I feel like it sucks almost as much for the people who have to see it. I’m—I wish you didn’t have to.”

“I know you do. But I’m glad I was there, to help you. I hope I helped you.”

She looked at him and looked out his massive window and admitted to herself that he had. Even if she hadn’t wanted to need it. Even if she felt guilty for needing it. And maybe it would make him feel good to know that he had. She took a sip of her coffee, strong and bitter and grounding.

“You did,” she said. And she looked back at his face and said, “Thank you. I wish I could remember everything that happened, everything you did. I don’t. But I remember you calming me down, in the backyard. I think . . . that’s hard to do. A few people have tried before but usually I think I end up screaming or panicking until I just pass out from exhaustion. Thank you for not letting me run off into the street. Thank you for bringing me here.”

Ben fidgeted, looked almost embarrassed, which was ridiculous since it was _Rey_ who’d gone to a party with a bunch of strangers and drunk herself chaotic. But he was walking around the counter now, his hands flexing, and when he stopped in front of her, he said softly, “Can I hug you?”

He was so close that all she had to do was swivel the stool a little, lean forward the slightest bit. And she did. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his chest, felt his hands on her back, her head. _Skin._ That was all she could think of. The warmth, the smoothness of his skin against the inside of her arms, her palms, her cheek.

She breathed in but couldn’t exhale, and then she was crying. He held her tighter and she turned her face to hide it against his sternum. He whispered soft things against the top of her head, his fingers stroking gently over her neck, through her hair. It felt so good to be held, to cry against someone, and that relief was so at odds with her deep well of shame that she couldn’t pull herself together.

Ben leaned down, his face against the top of her shoulder, and pulled her arms around his neck. He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him as he carried her a few steps, sat down on a couch with her in his lap. She rested her forehead on his shoulder, took deep breaths, listened to him saying her name over and over, bringing her back.

“Rey. Let go. Let go of your guilt. It’s not helping you anymore. You don’t need it.” She felt his chest rise and fall with his breath. He said, “Let me take care of you. Please.”

She sat up, kept her eyes closed, and felt his warm hands on her face, his thumbs brushing tears from her cheeks. She said, “Okay,” and in seconds he was standing again, carrying her back down the hall. He faltered in the bedroom, set her down but held her still against his chest, his pulse beating against her ear.

He said, “Can I— Do you want to shower?” She nodded, and he turned her around and shuffled her into the bathroom, left her standing on the rug as he bustled about turning on the water, setting out a towel.

When he turned back to face her she looked up into his face and found it a little hesitant. She took his face in her hands and kissed him. He exhaled through his nose, his mouth softening against hers, and she opened her mouth just enough to taste coffee, salt. She pulled back and took his hands, placed them at her waist, whispered, “Please.”

His breath shaky, he took off her shirt, her shorts, and, when she nodded, her underwear. He started to press her toward the shower, but she stopped him, said, “You too, right?” and pushed his sweatpants down over his hips. He wasn’t wearing boxers, and she stared intently at her hands on his hipbones, the lines of muscle over them.

Feeling her face redden a little she looked back up at him, smiled a little, reassuringly, and stepped into the shower. It was already steamy in there, warm but not too hot. Ben stepped in behind her and held her back against his chest, his arms around her waist. He asked if she wanted to wash her hair, and she shook her head. He said he’d try not to get it wet.

He reached around her for a bottle of soap, and then his warm hands were rubbing suds over her belly. She heard his breath grow shallow as he lowered his hands to her hips, raised them to her breasts. He paused there for a minute, holding them in his palms, rubbing his thumbs across her nipples, then washed her chest, her shoulders.

Then, leaning closer into her, he skirted his hands back down over her hips, her thighs, and brought them up, pausing at the tops of them until she whispered, “Please.” He traced his fingers over her vulva, and again. She turned around to face him, kissed him hard. He held her still, one hand on her hip and the other on her shoulder, and kissed her back, deeply, opening his mouth to slide his lips over hers and lick into her mouth.

He broke the kiss, and said, a little breathless, “I’m not done with you yet.” And he spun her back around to face the water, ran his hands back over her front to rinse off the soap, tweaking her nipples lightly and teasing her vulva as he did it. He washed her back, massaging it gently, dipping a hand just slightly between her ass cheeks.

And when he spun her back around _she_ was breathless, and he was smirking. He pulled her up against his chest to rinse her back. She pulled his face back down to hers to kiss him again, and this time she pulled away when _she_ was ready. She took the soap and tried to wash him as teasingly as he’d done her, but she wasn’t quite as patient.

She watched her hands skirt over his chest, his shoulders, trail suds down over his belly and thighs. She laughed a little when he huffed at her avoiding his dick, which pressed thick against her belly when she reached around him to squeeze his ass. She took him by the hips and spun him around, as he’d done to her, and rested her cheek against his shoulder blade. She reached back around his hips, wrapped one arm around his waist, and smoothed her other pressed down his belly and over his dick, stroking down it and running her thumb over the tip. She stroked back up, turned him back around, pushed him into the water to rinse him off.

When they got out he dried her off, wrapped her up in a towel, left her standing there for a minute to get his own. She followed him out into the bedroom, found him sitting on the bed. She saw a clock, remembered that there was time outside this.

Sitting next to him, she said, “Did you have plans today? It’s probably time I should—”

“No! No. I don’t. You can stay, longer, if you want.” But she wasn’t sure what she wanted, wasn’t sure what _he_ wanted. She didn’t think she’d overstayed, but maybe she had and he was just too nice to say it, to ask her to leave. Maybe he felt bad for her, or guilty for not wanting her to be there.

Ben wrapped his arms around her from the side, pressed his face into the back of her neck, said, “I would like you to stay. You can stay all day if you want. I have food. I can make us lunch. If you’re hungry.”

She held on to his arm over her chest, said, “Not yet.” She said, “I think I’d like to . . . just lay down for a bit?” He said, “okay,” kissed the back of her neck, and stretched out on the bed over the quilt. She lay down next to him, both still wrapped in their towels, and rested her face on his chest.

Her brain was still so tired from freewheeling between the abject shame of earlier this morning, the existential chaos of last night, and this feeling of being so cared for, so desired, right now. She tried to be there in the moment, to pay attention to what she was feeling. She couldn’t. Her mind kept floating away to nothing, to ruminating on images of her in shitty embarrassing positions.

Even so her mind felt empty, dead, like she wasn’t in it. She was overtaken by those images, but she felt also that if she could exist in her body then she could be more real. Her mind was a dead weight on the leash of her shame, her anxiety, but her body had a mind of its own, and it was _restless_. She could feel Ben’s warm damp skin against her cheek; she could hear the sound of his breath in his chest. Her body wanted, then, and she leaned into that want, let it take over to rule her consciousness.

She ran her free hand over Ben’s chest, breathed deeply of the soapy scent of his warm skin. She slung a leg over his thighs, pressed her hips against him. Not enough. She crawled up over him, throwing off the towel she got tangled in on the way up. She buried her face in his neck, mouthing at his skin, her hands sliding up under his shoulder blades.

Against the side of his face she said, “Please touch me,” and his hands were on her, grasping her hips, rubbing up her back, squeezing her ass. She held his head, ran her fingers through his damp hair, kissed him. She wanted to lay there for a long time, just enjoying his mouth, the taste of him, his hands on her body. So she stretched her legs out, one outside along his and the other slung over his hips, still in his towel, pressing lightly over his dick. And she let herself enjoy it.

After a while he took her jaw in his hand and pulled back, his breath coming harder. And she worried just for a moment that she was being too assertive, that he didn’t like it. But he looked into her face and smiled, said, “I could kiss you all day.” Then he kissed her once, twice, and turned to his side, pulling off his towel, pressing her hip so that she rolled to turn away from him.

When he pulled her hips back against him she felt his dick hard against her ass. He gripped her hip hard, rutting against her. He lifted up on one elbow over her, exhaled into her neck.

He said, “Is this too much?”

She shook her head, swallowed, whispered, “No.”

He said, “Tell me what you need.”

“Please just keep touching me.”

He laid back down, his chest flush against her back, his knees tucked into hers. He touched her everywhere he could reach, his free hand warming her and softening her and teasing her. He tweaked one nipple, biting softly at the nape of her neck. He gripped her hip again, pressing her ass back against him and groaning into her ear.

She took his hand and pressed it between her legs, said, “ _Please_ ,” worried she’d said it too much, that she’d be better off not speaking. But then he was sliding a finger through her labia and she forgot her fears entirely. He brought his finger up slowly over her clit; her back arched. And then he slid it back down, near to her cunt but not quite there.

And back up, circling around her clit, teasing her after that one first stroke over it. He stretched his other arm underneath her, wrapped it across her chest. Rey lost herself in the tracing of his fingers through her, the occasional soft pressure of one fingertip on her clit, the firm hold of his arm across her shoulders, the grounding of his breath.

After a while she squirmed, needy. His hand tightened on her shoulder; his fingers stilled and moved to grasp her hip. She whined quietly, blushed, pressed her ass back against him. He held her still, and she heard his voice low above her ear: “Tell me what you need, Rey.” She squeezed her eyes shut, gripped the arm over her chest.

She opened her eyes, said, “I need you to fuck me. Please.”

And then his warmth was gone from her back, his arms disentangling from her torso. She felt suddenly cold, afraid to move, a clammy dead fist squeezing tight in her chest.

He fumbled behind her, said, “Just a second, sorry, just—just getting a condom.” She exhaled, felt that fist in her chest loosen a little, felt it fade altogether when his warmth returned to her back. He settled one arm back underneath her, over her chest, the other at her hip, tilting her back toward him. He slid his dick between her thighs, a hand between her legs pressing it up to slide against her vulva.

Her breath caught when the hard heat of him brushed over her clit, and he said, “Okay?” She held his arm at her chest, said _yes._ He smoothed his hand over her inner thigh, pressing it up to open her to him, and guided his dick toward her cunt. His arm tight around her, his face in her neck, he pressed into her, groaning quietly with that first thrust up. Then his hips were flush against her, and she was _full_ full full of him, his cock filling her cunt, his low voice filling her ear, her whole head full of just _Ben_.

Her hands shook on his arm as he began to pull out, her body still held immobile by his hands on her shoulder, her hip. He thrust back into her slowly, the head of his dick dragging up her front wall and making her back arch. Her clit throbbed, and she clenched around him, felt him bite down on her shoulder.

She took the hand at her hip and pressed it back between her legs. He circled her clit but gave her more now, sliding over it more often, matching his slow thrusts until she was squirming, whimpering. He sped up a bit now, using his arm at her chest to hold her against him, to deepen his thrusts. She wondered if she would need to touch herself to come, but his fingers were sliding with just enough pressure, just fast enough, over her clit, and she felt her orgasm rising up inside her. She tilted her hips back, allowing him even deeper, so that each thrust hit that spot inside her behind her clit.

She grasped at his arm, their skin sliding sweaty now, took his hand from her shoulder and brought it to the base of her throat. He held it just there, his fingers spanning her collarbones, his hand stiff against her throat but applying no pressure. His hips slowed a little, and she gripped both of his wrists and whispered, _please._

He sped back up, his dick sliding deep inside her and his fingers moving faster at her clit. She leaned her torso forward, pressing her throat into his hand until she _just_ felt her breath constrict, the pressure in her face and the immediacy of her lack of breath bringing her fully into her body, and then she was falling apart. As her orgasm washed over her, she pulled back from his hand at her throat and gasped in full breaths that he knocked out of her as he fucked her through her it.

As she came down, slowing her breaths, he pressed his hand over her vulva. She squirmed against it with her aftershocks, those small movements reminding her of his hardness still inside her. Afterward he lay still with her, holding her and breathing with her, stroking her side, her chest with his free hand. He pressed deep into her once and then pulled out slowly, moving to take off the condom, and she rolled over, confused, said, “Don’t you want to come?”

He lay back down next to her, pulled her over onto his chest. “Not right now. Don’t need to right now.”

She set her chin on his chest to look up at his face, kissed his jaw, his mouth. She said, “Are you sure?” and he nodded, touching her face.

He said, “Probably about time for lunch anyway, right? Are you hungry?” And she didn’t want to let it go, didn’t like this feeling of being indebted to him, since he had let her come without coming himself. But he seemed content. And she was hungry, now that she was thinking about food.

She said, “Maybe,” and he kissed her forehead, gently pressing her off his chest to sit up. She followed him back into the bathroom, and he washed her gently with a warm washcloth, dressed her in his too-big clothes. She shadowed him into the kitchen, sat on the stool he’d set out for her, and drank her reheated coffee while he set out things for sandwiches. He fried them each an egg, sliced tomatoes, even toasted the bread.

She stared at the plate he set in front of her, watched the yolk pooling onto the ceramic, the condensation from the glass of orange juice next to it dripping slowly onto the counter. He’d sat down on the stool next to her, and she got up, stood between his legs, took his head in her hands. She stared into his face and said, “Thank you,” felt a little silly getting so serious about his making her a sandwich. But of course it wasn’t just about the sandwich.

They ate together quietly, and afterward she washed their plates. She sat up on his counter next to the sink, held his hand as he stood next to her. She said, “I think I should go home for a bit.”

He said, “Can I see your phone?” She dug it out of her purse, still lying on the floor where she’d dropped it earlier, and watched him send himself a text. He looked at her intently as he handed it back to her, his face filled with questions he didn’t ask. She wanted to know what they were.

“Will you be okay walking by yourself? Do you know how far it is from here?” She showed him the route in her maps app. It would only be a twenty-minute walk. She put her own shorts back on but kept his shirt, tying it up at her waist. He stood on his porch as she left, hugged her tight, kissed her again. She lingered a little, feeling like it was a big goodbye but knowing also that it wasn’t, really.

Off the porch the sun was bright on her face, hot on her skin. She felt softened by it, limber, as she walked, and she relished in the shade under the trees next to the sidewalk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please accept this offering of soft comfort and bittersweet smut in recompense for the pain of the previous chapter. 💕


	5. The Difficulty Is to Walk without Touching the Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey gets home Saturday afternoon feeling very sated, mostly content, and a little restless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from ["body"](https://youtu.be/5z2zKPW5BxI) by Gia Margaret.

Norra greeted Rey at the door, meowing loudly and winding around her legs. Rey filled her food bowl and sat down on the couch. She looked at the text Ben had sent himself from her phone. It just said _Ben Solo._ She found herself saying his name aloud, looked over to see if Norra had heard her, but the cat was still feasting as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Dramatic.

She started a reply to his text: _Hi Ben, this is Rey Johnson._ She grimaced at how formal that sounded, when she’d been naked in his bed two hours before. But she went with it. _Just got home. My cat has filed a complaint about the tardiness of her daily ration but otherwise all good here._

Was it weird to bring the cat into it? She just wanted him to know she felt fine, but it seemed a bit much to say, _Thanks for the fuck and the sandwich, feeling much better._ She left in the bit about Norra, sent the message. She thought to plug in her phone, but it was still mostly charged, somehow.

Norra hopped up on the couch next to her, smacking her lips. Rey lay down and pulled the cat into her chest, knowing she’d be needy enough to allow the snuggles. Rey felt sated, content, her stomach full and her skin sunned and her body thoroughly fucked. She felt almost relaxed, but she was still physically exhausted from the stress of the night before. Norra settled down, a warm weight against her chest, and Rey fell asleep hard.

***

When she woke up she had no idea how much time had passed. The sun was still out, bright but lower. She dislodged Norra, picked up her phone to check the time—after four, she’d been out a few hours—and saw a text from Ben. _Glad you made it back OK. Hope I’ll see you Tuesday._ Tuesday. Bar day. That seemed . . . like a long time from now, Saturday afternoon.

She folded some laundry, stared at the walls, felt generally restless. She took a shower, looked at the light bite mark on her shoulder in the mirror. Put on a tank top, definitely didn’t look for any more excuses to walk past the mirror again.

At six she sat down and looked at her phone. Opened Ben’s text. Added him to her contacts: _Ben Solo_. Set her phone back down on the coffee table. She found Norra, gave her some leftover wet food from the fridge. Sat back down on the couch, stared at her phone.

She texted Ben: _Do you want to come over?_

She left her phone on the couch and got up to find something else to do, but she heard it vibrate immediately and was back to pick it up in two steps. _Sure. Have you eaten? I could pick up something on the way._

This man wanted to feed her twice in one day. She didn’t deserve this. But she also didn’t want to try to cook for him, and she could pay him back. She replied: _I haven’t. That would be great, if you don’t mind_

She thought for a minute, sent another text: _Could you bring the Annihilation books? All three?_

And then she sent him her address.

He replied, _Sure, and thanks. See you in thirty minutes with books and tacos (let me know if there’s anything you don’t like on them)._

Rey spent the next twenty-seven minutes moving small objects back and forth in her apartment; she changed her sheets, took out the trash. At minute twenty-eight she hurriedly washed her face again and changed into nicer comfy clothes—jean shorts and another tank top. At minute twenty-nine she was sitting on her couch pensively, staring at her phone, at the door.

Her heart stopped when she heard the knock. She took deep breaths on the way across the room, practiced opening her eyes and closing them so she wouldn’t look terrified, wide-eyed, when she opened the door. Ben was standing there smiling and then she was grinning back at him without even trying.

He said, “Hi,” held up the takeout bag, and she let him by. She shut the door and turned around to find him kneeling down, taking off his boots and talking quietly to Norra, who was already circling him, sniffing at the food.

Rey picked up the bag before Norra could tear into it, introduced Ben to the cat. Ben shouldered off a backpack, left it with his shoes, gave Norra a few pats on the head.

He said, “Hello, Norra,” shook her paw. “Can I pick you up? No? Okay, okay, I’m sorry. We’ll get to that later.”

When Ben finally stood up, Rey turned and walked further into the apartment, set the food on her tiny dining table, hoping he would follow her. He did, and he was hugging her the second she set it down.

Holding her against his chest he said, “Hi,” again, and she said, “Thanks for bringing food. And for coming over.” He was warm from the walk; she breathed in the smell of his sweat. She pulled away and walked into the kitchen, asking if he wanted something to drink. As she filled him a glass of water, he sat down at the table, said, “Still feeling okay?”

She told him she was, that she’d slept a few hours when she got home, hadn’t done much else. She sat down next to him, and he reached up to touch the mark on her shoulder. She took a breath, said, “Tuesday seemed like a long time.” And he smiled. While they ate she asked him if he’d talked to his friend, if he’d said anything about the party. He told her Poe had texted after they left to make sure she was alright, and when she looked down at her plate he reassured her: “Trust me, it was one of the least eventful parties I’ve ever been to at Poe’s.”

He changed the subject, told her how jealous he felt of Poe sometimes, a professor in his mother’s department while he’d accepted a position at a community college, to his mother’s vocal disappointment. He asked her about Norra—how long she’d had her, how old she was—and laughed when she complained about Norra’s half-feral kittenhood.

She fidgeted when they finished eating, not sure how long he wanted to stay. She cleared the table, held out a beer to him when she came back, an invitation. He took it and sat next to her on the couch. Norra jumped into her lap to lick the condensation from her beer. Ben put his arm behind her back, pulled her by the hip to sit closer to him.

He said, “I brought you the other books.”

“And the first one?”

“Mmhmm. But didn’t you already read it?” He looked down at her.

“Yeah. Are they in your bag?” He nodded, and she stood up to get them. They were at the top of his backpack, and she pulled them out quickly, not looking at the folded fabric underneath. She sat back down with the first one, setting the other two on the coffee table. She flipped through it, handed it open to Ben.

She said, “Don’t lose the page.” She took his other hand in both of hers, held it over her face, over her chest. She said, “I had an idea.” He hummed, looking at the side of her face; she looked at his palm, at his fingers. She took the book back, leaned forward to set it upside down on the coffee table, hoping he wouldn’t mind the mistreatment. And she swung her leg over him to sit on his lap.

She’d sat over him like this earlier today, her eyes closed. Now she looked down into his face, taking in his nose, his deep brown eyes, his wide mouth, watched him bite his lower lip. She ran her thumbs over his eyebrows, his cheekbones. She met his eyes and kissed him slowly, felt his hands on her hips.

She took his bottom lip between her teeth, biting where he’d bit it, and his hands slid up to her ribs, catching the hem of her tank top. She opened her mouth to him; his hands slipped under her shirt, thumbs brushing the swells of her breasts. He groaned when she touched her tongue against his, and again when she ground her hips down, feeling the hardness under his fly.

She leaned back, tugged at his shirt, and pulled her own off while he was tangled in his. She leaned her bare chest against his, her hands in his hair, and he rubbed her spine, breathing hard against her neck. He said, “Your idea?” and she hummed in his ear. She sat up, hands on his shoulders. She hesitated and kissed him again, quickly, then stood up.

She handed him the book and said, “I want you to read this to me.”

“Right now?”

She nodded, kneeling between his legs, her heart thudding in her chest, making her whole torso feel shaky. He stared down at her, at her face, her breasts, her hands on his thighs.

She said, “Right now, Ben,” and pushed the book up over his face. “Please?”

He began to read: “Where lies the strangling fruit—” Rey had unbuckled his belt, her fingers frozen on the button of his shorts.

She said, “ _Ben._ ”

He picked back up: “The strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds . . .”

Rey was working down the elastic of his boxers. He cleared his throat, shifted his hips, continued: “that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives . . .”

His breath hitched when her fingers brushed over his erection, but he kept reading, haltingly. Rey eased his cock out of his boxers, traced one finger over it, top to bottom, listening to the breathlessness in his voice. She circled her finger around the tip.

“From the dimlit halls of other places forms that never—never were and never could be _writhe_ for the _impatience_ of the few . . .”

Rey snuck a glance up at his face from under the book, letting her breath ghost hot over the head of him. She watched him swallow, his eyes trained on the page, and when she blew another breath out over him his eyes fluttered shut. She pulled away.

He growled and continued, his voice sounding strained: “In the black water with the sun shining at midnight, those fruit shall come ripe . . .”

She traced the tip of her tongue from the base of him to the head, licking up the drop of precum that had settled there. Ben read, “that which is golden shall split open,” and she circled her hand around the base of his dick and took the tip into her mouth, laving her tongue over it. He took a few deep breaths and she let him.

He started up again: “to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness of the earth.” And as he spoke she lowered her head, taking him as full as she could into her mouth. She let herself moan at the taste of him, closing her eyes, and he inhaled sharply mid-word, one hand falling from the book to grip her wrist on his thigh. She slid her mouth back up, opened her lips to ghost another breath over him—“the petals of a monstrous flower”—and squeezed her hand around him as she closed her lips back over him again.

He read, “that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear,” and she began to move her head faster, bringing her hand up to meet her mouth and laving her tongue over the tip at the top of each stroke. He was pausing more frequently now, his breath coming harder, breaking up phrases, and a few of the words broke off into moans.

Rey tilted her hips back, pressing her clit hard against the seam of her shorts. Ben read, “all shall come to revelation, and to revel, in the knowledge of the strangling fruit,” and his low breathless voice and his little moans caressed her ears. She moved her mouth over him, sucking hard, stroking with one hand, and shook her other hand free of his grip to cup his balls. Ben’s head fell back; the book hung loose in his hand.

Rey froze, released him from her mouth, breathing hard, and he growled her name in frustration, shaking his head wildly. He lifted the book, read, “the hand of the sinner shall rejoice,” and she took him back in deep. She stroked him fast, sucking hard at the smooth head of him. He read, “for there is no sin in shadow or in light that—” and he broke off, said, “ _Rey, Rey, Rey—_ ” She felt his hand tight on her shoulder, felt him struggling not to buck his hips under her, and she pressed the flat of her tongue over the tip of his dick, giving her hand more space to move.

His hands hovered next to her head, the book falling to the floor, and he fell back against the couch, thrusting deep into her mouth. She gripped the bunched fabric at the front of his shorts, tasted the hot saltiness of his cum in her mouth, licked him softly as she swallowed. She slid her mouth off him, felt him shudder as her lips brushed the tip, and sat back on her heels. She looked up at him: splayed out against the back of her couch, his head thrown back, arms and legs stretched wide.

He whispered, _fuck_ , sat up to look at her. He leaned forward and held her face to kiss her, licked into her mouth, and at the taste of himself there growled almost as fiercely as he had before, before he’d come with his dick deep in her mouth. He pulled back to look at her and said, “ _Fuck_ , Rey, Jesus Christ.” And she smiled up at him, let her fingers trail up his chest to his neck. She pulled his head down, kissed his forehead.

She said, “I like you reading to me.”

Absently, his thumb and his gaze at the corner of her mouth, he said, “Do you?” She kissed his finger. She stood up, and he gripped her hips, pressed kisses over her bare belly. She held his head, felt him run his hands down over her thighs, squeezing gently at the insides of them and letting his fingers drift up under the hem of her shorts. He traced the seam of them, over her slit, with one finger, and her breath quickened.

She swallowed and winced at the loudness of it when he moved his head down, wrapped a hand around her ankle to lift her foot, setting it next to him on the cushion, opening her legs to him. He pressed his open mouth against her clothed cunt, and his hot breath flooded warmth over her clit through the fabric. She loved it, wanted him there, but she couldn’t let him.

She said, “Ben,” pushed lightly on his shoulder, and he leaned back to look up at her, brow furrowed.

He said, “Sorry, is this okay?”

“Yes, but—this was supposed to be about you.” She set her foot back down on the floor, but Ben kept his hands on her thighs. As much as she liked the warmth of them, liked being able to hide above his head, she felt awkward standing there in front of him. She sat down next to him, facing him with crossed her legs up on the couch, leaned her forehead on his shoulder.

He said, “What do you mean, about me? Rey, you don’t _owe_ me. You aren’t in debt to me.” He turned to look at her, dislodging her head from his shoulder.

She said, “But you didn’t get to come earlier.”

“I told you I didn’t need to. I meant it.”

She said, “I don’t think I understand how this is different.”

He adjusted his shorts, lay down on the couch, jostling her until she stretched out next to him. She rested her head on his bicep, and he wrapped an arm around her back to hold her on the couch. He looked into her face and said, “Did you enjoy giving me head?”

Rey closed her eyes briefly, tried not to blush. “I did.”

He said, “I wouldn’t have liked it as much if you hadn’t. I know it was for me. But if you enjoyed it too, wasn’t it also kind of for you?”

He leaned in to kiss her forehead. He said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go all fucking Socratic.” He sighed. “I just—I want you to have sex with me because you want to, because you enjoy it, not because you feel like you owe it to me. You don’t owe me an orgasm. You don’t owe me anything. I’m not—this isn’t a transaction, for me. It makes me feel good to make you feel good.”

Rey felt tears behind her eyes and buried her face in Ben’s chest. She wanted to apologize, wanted to thank him, but neither seemed like the right thing to say. Ben’s arm tightened around her to hold her close.

“Rey, it’s okay. I’m not upset. I just—I really like you. And I want you to feel good with me.”

She looked up at him, still trying not to cry, said, “I do. I do I do I do.” She whispered _I’m sorry_ and leaned in to kiss him, hard, before he could say anything about it. They lay there quiet for a few minutes, and when Ben asked if she wanted a smoke, she said yes.

Sitting out on the porch in the dark, Ben still shirtless, Rey took a drag of the cigarette he lit for her. She said, “I quit smoking a couple years ago. I’d been missing it when I met you. The excuse to sit outside and think and all that.”

He blew out a breath. “Sorry. I know I need to quit too. This past month it’s been an excuse to spend more time with you, to be close to you. To sit outside and think about you, on other days.”

She let a mouthful of smoke float up from her lips, knowing he was watching her, wondering if he was remembering when she’d done that before or thinking about other things she’d done with her mouth more recently. She took his arm in her lap, traced her fingers over the lines of his tattoo. When they were done she stood up, pulled him up with her by the hand.

He shut the door behind them and caged her in against it to kiss her. He lowered his head to mouth at her neck, murmured against her skin, “Can I stay over?” She said, “I hoped you would.”

She showed him the bathroom, the bedroom, not that they would’ve been difficult to find in her little apartment. She put on her best cute pajamas while he brushed his teeth. Her bed wasn’t huge, and when Ben squeezed into it with her they had to lay close. It had been a few years since she’d shared a bed with someone else, and Rey worried she’d have a hard time falling asleep. She didn’t.

***

Sunday morning Rey woke up first, took a few moments to appreciate Ben’s face asleep. So quiet, his deep intensity at rest. She wanted to remember his mouth slightly open, his hair wild, the soft line of muscle relaxed in his chest. She got up and made coffee, sat on the counter listening to it brew.

She wondered if bringing Ben coffee in bed was transactional. She didn’t know how to think of relationships _not_ transactionally: People did nice things for her; she repaid them as best she could. If she didn’t do enough, they left. She toasted bread and cut it into little triangles, thought about what Ben’s smile would look like when he smelled the coffee, the toast. In two trips she carried it all back to her bedroom and set it on the nightstand. Ben was awake, petting Norra. His smile exceeded expectations.

After they ate, Ben stacked their plates and pulled Rey down to lay on his chest. He took his time kissing her, running his hands over her skin. He pulled off her shirt, rolled her over to her back, deepened his kisses but kept them slow, controlled. He took off their shorts, nipped at her inner thigh, then crawled back up her body. She lifted her hips, chasing his dick; he pressed her back down with one hand.

In her ear he said, “One day I hope you’ll let me taste you,” and he licked at the goosebumps his voice raised on her neck. He fucked her slow, controlled, thorough, as he’d kissed her, worked her up to orgasm with his thumb at her clit. He pulled out to come across her belly as he watched her own orgasm winding down on her face. She trailed her fingers through the little puddles of cum on her torso, too sleepy, too sated to worry about what he would think of that.

Afterward they showered, laid in bed naked and quiet for a long time, until they got hungry. Late that afternoon they both understood it was time for Ben to go home. Rey’d spent more time with him in the past three days than she’d spent with all the other people she knew combined over the last half-year. He picked her up near her front door, squeezed her tight.

He said, “I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

She nodded. “Tuesday.”

After Ben left, Rey slumped back into her couch. She picked up the second book in the trilogy Ben had left her and began to read. Tuesday wasn’t so far away at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THE ART WrittenUnderDuress made for us!!! They're on Twitter [@written_under](https://twitter.com/written_under)!
> 
> [Socratic method](https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/810) (teaching style). Ben's being a little obnoxious there but I hope you can forgive him.
> 
> And that's all, folks! Thank you all for reading and for all of your comments! I've so appreciated your encouragement on this, my longest and first real multichapter fic. :)))

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always if you feel there's something additional I should've tagged, please feel free to say so in a comment or DM me on Twitter; I'm at [@van1lla_v1lla1n](https://twitter.com/van1lla_v1lla1n)! I'd love if you come say hello there regardless :)
> 
> If you liked this, you might also like [Roof Talk](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25211983), another sort of introspective modern AU but from Ben's POV (cw religious stuff tho)


End file.
